Between the two of us, we smoke one joint after 7 p.m. about four days a week. We also enjoy it on special occasions like holidays and birthdays. Lately, when our adult child has been over to visit and we step away to share a joint, they'll comment, I thought you only smoked on certain days or something to that effect. I feel like they're keeping tabs on us, or even judging us by saying OK in a disapproving way.
You know what families always say about estranged relatives? "They changed." "They got selfish." "They think they're better than us now." But after years of watching this pattern play out, reading psychology texts on family dynamics, and yes, living through my own complicated family relationships, I've noticed something different. The people who end up distancing themselves from their families often share remarkably similar experiences and traits that have nothing to do with what their families believe.
She will leave notes on our bedroom door about how "loud" we are being or announce in public when my boyfriend and I are being intimate and how "gross and disgusting" it is. She will say this like she asked someone to pass the milk and seems pleased how embarrassed everyone gets. Her grandparents refuse to address this behavior and her grandmother even scolded me that we need to "keep it down."
That same night, he texted me and asked if he could see me again at the end of the week. He sent a restaurant and a time and asked if that was OK with my taste and schedule. I agreed. Over the next few days, he texted and called me, and we had good conversations. It all felt so intentional.
My sister-in-law "Jane" is the divorced mom of a 7-year-old son, "Derek," and a 5-year-old daughter, "Talia." Child care is insanely expensive in our area, and reliable sitters are rare. Because I work from home, I offered to watch Jane's kids after they get out of school while she's at work. It seemed like the perfect solution at first. Dear Used, Within the past few months, however, my SIL has been increasingly late in picking up Derek and Talia.
Madeline Cash's debut novel, Lost Lambs, tells the story of a modern American family: semi-estranged parents in an ill-fated open relationship and three teen daughters with internet boyfriends and dangerous connections to the tech billionaire up the road. The book made such a splash when it was published last month - "vivid, breezy prose alight with casual wit," said the New Yorker; "the comic novel we need right now," declared the Washington Post -
Should I let this go? THROWN IN OREGON DEAR THROWN: Yes, let it go. Your children are adults and have their own priorities. You can't control them, nor should you try. I'm sorry your friend is upset, but your children are not responsible for it. The kids are not as close as she assumed they were, and she is going to have to learn to accept that.
My parents were not a love match. My dad was at the very least not straight. They got married because they got pregnant, and it was like, my dad came from a Catholic family.
Looking for work to do. Not like a job, but my parents and older family all complain constantly they have no free time. But all they do is make themselves work. Cut down some trees, rearrange the entire house, dig up the yard. Just always making themselves work.
At its core, premarital counseling is meant to prepare you and your partner for all the challenges that will test your commitment to one another. It's important to explore topics such as finances, family size, and how to manage in-laws before marriage, but we also need to recognize that the plan decided before marriage may not always apply in 5, 10, or 20 years. Premarital counseling can potentially teach you how to communicate effectively and what you need to discuss.
Growing up, Melissa Shultz sometimes felt like she had two fathers. One version of her dad, she told me, was playful and quick to laugh. He was a compelling storyteller who helped shape her career as a writer, and he gave great bear hugs. He often bought her small gifts: a pink "princess" phone when she was a teen, toys for her sons when she became a mom.
We bought a house in a trendy area near the city centre, and our home has become like a party base for the girls at the weekends. One has just become engaged and our kitchen is like a Pentagon conference room most Sundays. The table is filled with charts and brochures, and there's constant chat about the logistics of overseas guests and the politics of who is invited and who isn't.
"Turns out, Steve's brother...Tony, also went to the same college as I did, and in a similar department," X writes. "Steve then jokingly asked if I've ever met Tony or hooked up with him, to which I said honestly, \"probably not, since it's a big school\" and brushed it off since his name and description didn't ring a bell."
My husband Edwin comes from a big Colombian family, which is very different from the kind of environment I grew up in, and it leads to conflict between us. I had one sibling, a brother, but he passed away in a car accident when I was nine. My mum died a couple years ago. I grew up quite detached from my parents and was never that close to my father. As a result, I'm very independent and I like my own space.
Profile Theatre's Tiger Style is the best bargain to be found right now in Portland theater. You buy a ticket to a comedy and get-as a free bonus-a dazzling array of vignettes dissecting Asian American education, life, relationships, and myths. It's giving a side eye to corporate life, showing how families break up and make up, and offering biting examples of Communist Party of China (CPC) politics. Such a deal!
The server you mentioned may need tips to survive on her sub-minimum or minimum wage income. However, a tip should never be requested, and for a server to follow your niece out of a restaurant to discuss a small tip is beyond the pale. Although some establishments suggest tips that can go as high as 35%, most customers give 15% or 20% of the total bill.
Just four months after the shocking news broke that Kidman and Urban were ending a 19-year-old marriage that was long believed to be one of Hollywood's most stable, the 58-year-old Urban has been linked to Karley Scott Collins, who is 32 years his junior and just nine years older than his oldest daughter, Sunday Rose, 17. The Daily Mail reported this week that the Australian country star is rumored to have moved on
Oh, my. It seems like who goes around comes around. It's a shame that you can't leave the past a one-night stand more than 37 years ago in the past and find the humor in this. I suspect it happens more often than you think. Please quit regarding this as a competition between you and your brother-in-law's girlfriend. Your husband chose you. End of contest. If there is cause for embarrassment, it should be hers, not yours.
He doesn't lower his voice when he asks, and then he argues about tipping the typical 20%. It was so embarrassing when we took his nephews out to dinner that one of them asked if he could leave the tip instead. When we took my son and daughter-in-law out to celebrate a milestone birthday, my husband made sure to let them know how expensive the dinner was.
"If one partner protects their creativity and rest and ambition or joy because the other partner is holding the system together, that joy is being heavily subsidized," she explains. "Not by money, but by someone else's nervous system."
I'd gently suggest that you're not helpless against the changing tide. You've noticed a pattern that seems to be in conflict with your hopes and expectations for the holiday. So, for next year, you have the opportunity to talk about it with your daughters in advance and find a solution that makes everyone happy. Every holiday meal is, of course, about the food, but its primary purpose is togetherness as a family.
Sibling estrangement is not just about not talking to your brother or sister. It has much broader ramifications, as sibling rejection can profoundly shape an individual's personality and their roles in the family. The estranged may lose the opportunity to be a sibling, in-law, aunt or uncle, and even son or daughter, as estrangement often metastasizes and family members choose sides. These shifting alliances may contribute to greater alienation.
When you're the one who organizes the family vacation, calls the plumber for your parents, and coordinates every Mother's Day gift, it's easy to feel resentful that nobody else is stepping up to help. Often, the eldest daughter is the one who notices-and in noticing, begins to believe she's responsible. Family researchers have long described this as intergenerational vigilance (Miller-Ott et al., 2017), a sense of watchfulness passed down through gendered expectations.
I go into Christmas every year with low expectations for my husband's side of the family. They are notoriously bad gift givers, so I just go into it with the knowledge that the gifts don't matter, it's about our time together as a family.
Families serve as the connective glue for many people, providing a sense of belonging and acceptance while forming a framework for relationships throughout their lifespan. Despite their potential to nurture security and intimacy, however, some families fall short, and certain interaction patterns can be harmful-not just at yearly family get-togethers, but on a personal level as well. Toxic family dynamics-from belittling to exerting power and control to manipulation-have been well-established by research as damaging and destructive.
We had taken every precaution we could to avoid it. I have MS, which can react in unpredictable ways to viral exposures. My husband knows this very well, which is why I'm perplexed and furious that he thought it better to stay on the good side of our son by not allowing me to decide for myself whether I wanted to walk into a potentially deadly situation.
When she asked us where we were going, I panicked, and I told her we were invited to go skiing with friends at their chalet. (We do not know anyone with a chalet.) My dad called to tell me my mother was more upset than she let on and asked if we could "visit that damn chalet" some other time.
When I was eight years old, I was living in Dubai and desperate to experience a western Christmas. My family are Muslim, and Christmas was something we'd never celebrated but after consuming countless festive Hallmark movies, I was hooked on the dream of having turkey, tinsel and, most importantly, presents. I also had an enormous crush on Macaulay Culkin, and thought if I could experience Christmas for myself it would somehow bring me closer to him.
